


I Scream At Myself When There's Nobody Else To Fight

by revenblue



Series: [series] Halfway Right [3]
Category: Phineas and Ferb
Genre: Angst, Drunk Driving, Dubious Consent, M/M, Morning After, POV Second Person, Perry's in a bad place right now, Poor Life Choices, Punching a Mirror, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, featuring a stunning lack of Talking About It, more like hungover driving but, this is not a happy fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-12
Updated: 2019-03-12
Packaged: 2019-11-15 22:24:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18082046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/revenblue/pseuds/revenblue
Summary: You can see him now, the platypus you aren't, staring down his bill at you like you're nothing more than dirt beneath his hindpaws.





	I Scream At Myself When There's Nobody Else To Fight

**Author's Note:**

> Please check the warnings, they're there for a reason.

Consciousness returns slowly, like the creeping sense of dread on a mission gone wrong, saying you'll die and there's nothing you can do to stop it. Just as painful, too. The dim light outside your eyelids stabs into your brain, matched only by the blinding agony at even the slightest sound. Even your heartbeat's too loud.

What the _fuck_ did you do last night.

You reach out for- for- for _answers_ , just out of reach of your paws, and find fur. Not your fur. Soft and fluffy and _warm_ fur, too long to be yours.

Dreading what you'll find, you pry your eyes open. Faint light slinks in through grimy windows, refracted through endless pouring rain, doing nothing to break the gloom. What illumination there is barely lights the small, cramped, room, filled with empty glass bottles and- and-

Peter.

Fucking _Peter_. You'd recognise that black and white fur anywhere. Peter the fucking Panda. Asleep on your chest, paws wrapped around you, gently snoring, Peter.

A strangled whimper tears from your throat as you pry him off, wincing at the dried-

No. Oh no. You _didn't_. Staggering away, paw against your bill, gut twisting, you swallow down bile. How could you-

Heinz-

Your knees give out from under you. Falling to the floor, to your paws, it's all you can do to hold back tears. You- Peter-

A scream dies in your throat, pushed aside by the contents of your stomach as you throw up on Peter's floor, cheap vodka (the bitter taste of regret) that doesn't taste any better on the way back up. Did you even eat anything solid last night? Of course you fucking didn't, that would have been _smart_ , and you lost any claim to _that_ the moment you tried to kiss-

A weight falls on your shoulder and you jump, scrambling away to put your back against a wall. Peter. He's staring at you with that same enigmatic expression he always wears and you can't fucking stand it. You want to punch it off him. You want to run. You want to- want to-

He raises a paw, and you wish he'd hit you already. Then everything could make sense. Fighting's familiar, fighting's easy. Break your jaw, break your ribs, break your neck, maybe then your chest will ache less.

But no, he's holding your hat, stained and damp with the stench of cheap alcohol.

Snatching it from his paw, you turn, stumbling to the door on unsteady hindpaws as he watches. You need to get out. The handle sticks under your paws as you tug, desperately, choking on your own panic.

At last it opens, and you fall through, head spinning.

Finding your hoverjet parked haphazardly outside, you collapse into the seat like the mess you are. Tears cloud your vision and you force back a sob, as if that could help right now. Everything hurts. Your paws, your throat, your chest, your-

It's an effort to drag yourself up to sit properly but you do, paws curling around the wheel like a lifeline. Your paw finds the ignition on muscle memory alone and you pull out into the traffic.

A blink and you're flying over Danville, far away from Seattle, far away from _Peter_ , knuckles tight. It doesn't help. The sky might be clear now but there's still a cloud following you, a shadow hanging over your mind and darkening your thoughts, and no amount of sunlight can drive it away.

Bile rises in your throat at the sound of children's laughter ringing through the air, and you squeeze your eyes shut. How can you face your family like this? How can you act like nothing's wrong when even the thought of your boys smiling at you is unbearable? How can you go back, pretend nothing's changed, when your paws are shaking and your fur's matted with vomit and you reek of the sex you didn't want?

Your skin crawls where _he_ touched you, the echo of his paws on your body, and you want to claw it all off.

Taking a wide berth around the achingly familiar purple skyscraper in the middle of the city, you make your way to the suburbs on the far side. Home.

The back yard is, thankfully, empty when you arrive. Even as exhausted as you are, the process to open up your lair and drive your car in comes easily enough to your paws. Parking, on the other hand, is too much. You shut off the engine a second too soon and slam into the ground, hitting your head in the impact.

Fuck, you're a mess, you think, slumping forward while you wait for your vision to clear.

Your paws find the door handle and you fall out and onto the cold floor, forcing down a growl. Damn heating's activated with a heat sensor, how could you forget?

Dragging yourself to your feet, you stagger to the small bathroom in the far corner, past the communicator watch lying, smashed, where you'd thrown it last night. The sooner you wash this filth out of your fur, the sooner you can curl up in a blanket in front of your lair's screen and watch your stories until you pass out.

Twisting the taps on, you catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror: stained hat askew over bloodshot eyes, dull fur covered in dried fuck-knows-what, so far from the professional agent of the O.W.C.A. you're supposed to be. Not that you've felt much like Agent P these last few days, with his pristine fur and sharp glare and steadfast refusal to let his feelings get in the way of work.

You can see him now, the platypus you aren't, staring down his bill at you like you're nothing more than dirt beneath his hindpaws. Fury rises with the bile in your throat and you swallow it down, clenching a fist tight. You should be better than this. Stronger. Not-

Tears blur your vision again and you scrub them away. Who are you kidding, you're a pathetic disgusting mess who can't even hate his nemesis properly, you had to fall in love like a fucking _fool_.

Heinz was right to push you away.

Blinking back tears, you snarl up at the platypus you never _could_ measure up to, giving into the urge to punch his smug fucking face in.

The mirror splinters under your fist, cracking outwards into a million reflections of your own failures as shards of it bite into your knuckles. A million eyes staring back at you, judging you, finding you wanting.

Blood, your own blood, smears across the glass on the second punch, bright red and glistening. You can't breathe. You feel sick. You want more. Stain your paws with blood like the weapon you are. You may look like a person, an animal, but OWCA forged you into a weapon. Raised from hatching to eat, sleep, and breathe fighting. To die fighting.

To die.

You drive your fists into the mirror again and again and again until you're sobbing from the pain of it, the sting in your eyes and the stab in your paws and the burning ache in your chest. Fuck. Fuck fuck _fuck_ fuck _fuck_. One last punch and the mirror falls, shattering across the floor.

Slumping forward onto the edge of the sink, you feel your whole body shake as the last of your rage dissipates, replaced with a hollow numbness that's somehow worse. Even your tears have run dry.

A shard of glass slips into the sink and you pick it up, turning it over in your paws to watch light glint off its rough edges. Sharp edges. Slowly, carefully, you drag it across your palm, wanting it to hurt so there's something to feel. It doesn't. Part of you is disappointed. The rest of you doesn't care, watching the blood well up in its wake in idle fascination.

Behind you, the shower continues to hiss.

Turning back to it, you stagger to the tub on stiff legs, too numb to care about the glass crunching under your hindpaws and digging into your dragging tail.

The water's cold when you keel over into it, and you can't bring yourself to care about that either. It's just water. Pouring over you like rain, ripples washing up against your fur, the natural habitat of the platypus.

What would it be like to drown? Water in your mouth, water in your throat, water in your lungs, a quiet suffocation. No one would know.

But you can't summon the effort to care about that either, so you keep breathing, keep living. It's easier to float along like this, letting the current take you where it will.

Eventually (you're not sure how long; the artificial lights on the ceiling give no indication any time's passed at all, let alone how long you've been here) you shiver, curling in on yourself with a whimper. You're lost, drifting, without the anchor you've come to rely on-

Heinz-

Choking back a sob, you drag yourself up to at least sit with your back to a wall, tail along the line of the bath. Heinz is gone, you remind yourself. You missed your chance, not that you ever had one in the first place, and now there's no way he'll want anything else to do with you.

After what you did, you can't blame him for that. You don't want anything to do with you either.

You let yourself slide down with a sigh. Water runs over your fur, washing away the blood and the filth, then disappearing down the drain like a metaphor. For what, you have no idea. Doesn't matter.

Nothing matters any more.

* * *

The mask you wear for your family fits easier today, over the numbness where your heart used to be.

Limping out to the boys back under the tree, you don't (can't) react as they fuss over you, bandage your paws, celebrate your return like they actually fucking missed you. A lie, like everything else. If they knew-

But they don't.

**Author's Note:**

> Title (and series title) from [Halfway Right](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivSihne3rO8) by Linkin Park.
> 
> If I've judged right, I've just hit 134k words posted on ao3, which means I can get back to the part where I work on other things that otherwise woulda pushed me over and made me miss it XD Also some fluff. Fluff is... probably necessary, after *gestures* _that_ string of bad decisions.
> 
> I have more plans for this specific version of the characters though. Eventually. Somewhere in the WIP queue. *shifty eyes* ~~I gotta get this platypus some _therapy_.~~ I make no promises on when that'll show up, obviously.


End file.
